The EU sunders Greek politicians from their people

It’s not a national government – not, at least, in sense of a government that represents the nation. The coalition of the two big Greek parties has been formed for the sole purpose of pursuing an agenda that the nation rejects, viz. the Brussels-mandated loans-for-austerity programme. What’s more, the nation is right to reject it. Greeks can see that the bailout money is not coming to them, but to European bankers and bondholders. The interest payments, however, will indeed come from Greek taxpayers.

What we see in Athens is microcosm of what is wrong with the entire European project. Politicians have been sundered from the people they are supposed to represent. Observers are right to say that Greece is a divided society, but the nature of that division is alarming. The fracture is not between PASOK and New Democracy, not between Left and Right, but between the Brussels-backed elites and the rest of the country.

It’s a familiar pattern. European integration invariably pits what the French call the pays légal (politicians, civil servants, business leaders, newspaper editors) against the pays réel (everyone else). When Denmark and Sweden voted on the euro, when France and the Netherlands voted on the European Constitution, when Ireland voted on the Lisbon Treaty, there were thumping ‘No’ votes; yet, on each of these occasions, more than 80 per cent of national MPs had backed the measure.

We saw the same phenomenon in the United Kingdom last month. Sixty-seven per cent of voters wanted their MPs to support an In/Out referendum; only 18 per cent of MPs did so.

Who, then, speaks for the majority? In Greece, parliamentary opposition to the package is largely confined to the Communist Party. It’s not often one gets the chance to say this but, on this occasion, the far Left has been proved dead right. Greek Communists argued from the start that the euro might suit a few oligarchs and Brussels placemen, but that it would be a disaster for working people. Who, in retrospect, can deny that they were on to something?

What of Britain? Who speaks for the majority here? While various groups articulate popular Euroscepticism, only the righteous 111 have so far carried that opinion into the House of Commons.

The way to swell their number is, of course, to show MPs and candidates that there are rewards for doing the right thing – that, bluntly, supporters of an In/Out referendum are likelier than opponents to win elections. And the way to do that is to encourage your friends to commit to voting for referendum supporters. They can do so here.